The Ledger Page 14

  Christie set to work copying any information which might be pertinent. She was interested in learning how often Elena traveled, her destination, if she rented an automobile and the average length of her stay. The plastic contour chair was not as comfortable as she had first thought. It seemed to be forcing her back into an abnormal disc alignment. Her fingers began to cramp and she flexed them, then shook her hands vigorously. She squinted over her own handwriting. The notes were becoming almost stenographic. Christie began editing; it was stupid to copy everything verbatim. The facts: Elena traveled from New York to San Juan a total of nine times during the course of the past year. She alternated among three major airlines with first-class accommodations; registered at a suite in any of four of the largest, most luxurious hotels. Whenever she was in San Juan, a brand-new white Ford, automatic shift, was at her disposal through the Driver Best Company.

  And where did she drive the automatic-shift, brand-new white Ford? Now, that was a question which could be answered only if ... Christie felt new energy. Why not? Several of the men had taken out-of-town trips on investigations. Mr. Fernaldi could make all of her travel arrangements. She could travel tourist class and stay at a less-than-suite-size room. That didn’t have to face the ocean. In the mornings and afternoons, she could check out Elena’s various contacts and movements. And the evenings would be free ...

  “Well,” Mr. Fernaldi said, “you look as though you’re pleased with the information you’ve found.”

  Christie grinned. “All this cheerful sunshine coming at me from all these posters must have done something to my spirits.”

  Mr. Fernaldi’s expression was morose. “Well, yeah, I guess. I never really look at the pictures. Too busy making arrangements for clients. Like I said before, if you decide to travel, stop by. We’ll work something out.”

  “I just might. Things might turn out that way after all.”

  Christie felt her shoulder bag slide down to the crook of her arm, but she kept her hands curled inside the pockets of her coat. Somewhere along the way she had lost her fur-lined gloves and her fingers felt frozen. She kept her head down against the slashing wet assault of sleet and rain and occasional feathery wafts of snow. It was not quite cold enough for a real snowstorm but there was an undercurrent of frigid air, low to the ground, so that the sidewalks were slippery. It was four blocks to the subway, but Christie ignored the cold and the wet bleakness and thought of Puerto Rico and beaches and the very real possibility. She had convinced herself completely. If she was very careful, logical and persuasive, she could convince Casey Reardon. After all, it was a legitimate part of the investigation: of her aspect of the investigation and she should be the one to follow ...

  Christie’s eyes were on the sidewalk and though she anticipated the curb at the end of the block, she didn’t anticipate the automobile. And actually, the automobile was blocking the crosswalk so that as she hit against it, her hands, pulled from her pockets instinctively, made contact with the rear door. She had an odd, fleeting impression that the car had been idling there, rather than having stopped abruptly after failing to beat the changing traffic fight. As she pushed herself away from the car, she felt the man beside her right shoulder, felt his presence before she actually saw him. She could not have said from what direction he had come: he had just materialized.

  As he moved, Christie thought he was trying to help her or to see if she had been injured. He was a small man, his face level with her own, and though he made no physical contact with her, he seemed to encompass her. In the wet reflected street light, Christie could make out a hard, totally expressionless face with small monkey eyes which stared at her intently. He had a fighter’s flat nose and his jaw moved as his teeth cracked a wad of chewing gum. His long hair, flecked with spots of sleet and snow, was combed into a careful, stiff wave which added a little to his height, but not much. He reached for the rear door, and suddenly wary, Christie stepped back. As he opened the door, a light flooded the interior of the car.

  “Mr. Giardino wants to talk to you,” the man told her in a harsh rasp.

  “Mr. Giardino?”

  “Yeah. He’s in the car. He wants to talk to you.” He moved his head toward the car but his eyes stayed on her face.

  Christie’s mouth went dry. She looked into the car at the man in the back seat of the long black Mercedes. He leaned toward her, nodded, indicated a place beside him. All she could see was a bulk of dark coat and a gray homburg. She turned and realized that she was hemmed in by Giardino’s man and the open door of the car.

  “For a few minutes, you might like to come in out of the rain.” The voice from the car was soft and inflected with a slight accent. “Tonio, take a walk for yourself. You scare the lady.”

  Without a word, without the slightest facial adjustment, the small man turned and walked rapidly down Third Avenue.

  “Come on, come in out of the rain.” It was a coaxing voice, the patient voice that encourages a reluctant child to do what’s best. He leaned closer to the open door and Christie could see a face beneath the hat. “If you want, I will get out, but it seems foolish to stand and talk in all that bad weather.” Enzo Giardino’s voice filled with perplexed wonder. “You know, it never even occurred to me that Detective Christie Opara would be afraid to talk to me.”

  It was a shock: the stating of her name. It was as though something terribly personal had been violated and there were implications she could not even begin to consider at the moment.

  “I’m not afraid of you,” Christie said. It was true. She was not afraid of the physical presence of the man in the automobile. There was nothing sinister about his invitation or his expressed willingness to get out of the automobile. The streets were cold and wet and empty. Tonio was nowhere in sight. Christie turned, as though checking her location. Quickly, her numb fingers found her revolver inside her pocketbook and closed around it. She withdrew her hand from the pocketbook and slipped it into her coat pocket. She was not afraid of Enzo Giardino but she felt less afraid with her revolver resting against her hand.

  Enzo Giardino carefully lifted his hat from his head and placed it on the seat between them. The light behind his head cast dark shadows on his face. “Well, so I have convinced you to come in out of the rain. It’s a bad night to be in New York, eh?”

  She had heard his name spoken a hundred times; had encountered his name in newspapers and in official reports; had seen his photograph, seen him in television newsclips, but he translated as a total stranger. His face was thin and long and his nose bladelike. There were deep black half circles under his eyes which extended down his flat, almost concave cheeks. His lips were thin and colorless and pulled back into a stiff smile which revealed surprisingly white and square teeth. His gray hair, streaked through with black, was thick and carefully groomed: a point of vanity. Mixed with the odor of leather emanating from the soft upholstery was a tangy, spicy cologne. Enzo Giardino was a meticulously groomed, late-middle-aged man, who expressed concern for her in a fatherly voice.

  “You shouldn’t be out on the cold streets on a night like this. You should be where it’s warm. How many hours a day they got you working—ten? twelve?”

  Christie shrugged. It was the kind of gesture with which she responded to older people who sympathetically told her she should eat more, she was too thin, she should take vitamins, she should dress warmly, she shouldn’t work so hard, she should ...

  She should not be taken off guard so easily.

  “What is it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Giardino?”

  “Ah. Yes. I have something that I want you to give to Elena.” He reached forward; his hand went into a small pocket that was set into the back of the front seat. It was an envelope. Giardino tapped the envelope against his knee for a moment. “You’re a nice-looking kid, Opara,” he said appraisingly. “How the hell did a nice-looking kid like you get mixed up in such a dirty job?”

  “You have other jobs for girls that aren’t so dirty, right, Mr. Giar
dino?”

  There was a small rumble of appreciation, not quite a laugh. “You got guts, too. I like that. Tell me something.” He leaned toward her, his voice went low: a whispered confidence. “Just between the two of us. You’re not even a little scared, sitting here with me?”

  Christie shook her head from side to side. “Mr. Giardino, I have my fingers wrapped around my .38 Detective Special and it’s pointed straight at you. Why should I be scared?”

  The laugh was real this time, short and hard. “Hey, kid, you really think you fooled me? I know you got the gun into your pocket before you got into the car. But that’s good, that’s good. Shows you’re using the brains. But why would I want to hurt you, huh? I got a job for you. Here, you give these pictures to Elena.” He withdrew several color photos from the envelope. Christie glanced at them but couldn’t make out the figures.

  “Elena and the kid,” Giardino explained. “They just come back from the Kodak people. I thought she might like to have them. Take them, you look at them later, when you’re not so tense. Or when the light it’s a little better, huh, little detective.” He held the pictures at arm’s length, muttered something about his eyes, about getting old, needing glasses. Then, “They’re not too good of Elena, but the boy looks real nice. He’s getting to be a big boy, Raphael.”

  “Raphael?”

  Giardino’s voice changed; everything about him seemed to change. A cold hard certainty stiffened him. He had been playing with her. “The kid,” he said. “Elena’s kid. You spent all day trying to find his birth certificate. You wasted your time. He wasn’t born in New York. She had him on the Island. They run home to cousins, the little spic girls, when they’re in trouble. You’re a detective, you don’t know that?” The thin lips pulled back contemptuously; his words taunted her. “How many times did she go to see her little bastard this year? Huh? Nine times, ten times down to the Island? You find out at least that much today? You tell me.”

  Christie felt the full impact now; it all hit her. She had been watched, checked on, reported on. Some vague, vast, faceless “they” had done to her what she had done to so many others. But that had been her job. And checking on her had been “their” job. Her mind raced: at the Bureau of Vital Statistics, clerks, officials, city employees, helping her with the endless dusty volumes, making phone calls. To Giardino. At the travel bureau. Fernaldi and his whispering telephone calls. This car had been waiting for her, at exactly this location. Where it was known she would be. Enzo Giardino had been waiting for her.

  Though he said nothing threatening, not even vaguely suggestive of threat, Christie felt vulnerable. She drew her breath in sharply, audibly, in response to the tap on the window at the driver’s side. Tonio peered at her.

  Giardino’s voice was warm again, friendly. “Ah, Tonio has a sense of timing.” He gestured at the door. “Come on, Tonio, get in, get in. We’ll give you a lift to the subway,” he told Christie. “But only if you want. The Independent is a couple of blocks down. Why should you go out into that rain again?”

  Christie put the envelope of pictures into her left coat pocket. “What do you want me to say to Elena?”

  “And I thought you were a smart kid, Opara. I say nothing. That way, you can’t repeat nothing. Just give her the pictures of her kid. It’s a friendly gesture. You don’t want a lift? Well, suit yourself.”

  Cautiously, Christie moved backward against the car door. A blast of cold wet air filled the car and Giardino reached for his hat. He leaned toward her and looked up at Christie who stood, oblivious to the rain.

  “By the way, that’s a good-looking kid you got, too. A little younger than Raphael, eh?”

  12

  MICKEY OPARA CRADLED THE large gray tiger cat against his chest. There was a deep rumbling sound along the animal’s throat.

  “Hey, Mom, is this dumb cat purring or growling at me?” The boy lifted the animal to his face, then quickly dropped him to the floor. “Sweet William stinks. Boy, Sweet William do you stink. Don’t you think he stinks, Mom?”

  Christie watched the boy closely. Had they followed him? Had anyone spoken to him? There was no way she could broach the subject. She reached out absently and touched his thick dark hair.

  “Don’t say ‘stinks,’ Mickey. It’s an ugly word.”

  “What’s a better one, Mom? One that means the same thing, but isn’t ugly?”

  Christie carried on the conversation with one small part of her consciousness. She was glad Nora had gone to the theater. Nora would have spotted something wrong.

  Christie regarded the fat, short-legged cat carefully. “Well, you could say Sweet William is malodorous. Means the same thing, but it’s a big word and might make him feel important.”

  “Malodorous.” Mickey tried the word, then grinned. “Sweet William, you are malodorous.” He flung himself on the floor, his face inches from the cat’s. “And that means you stink!” His hand went under the cat’s jaw, raised his face. Sweet William kept his eyes locked tight. “Hey, Mom, did you see his newest wound? See, the cut down his nose, it goes all the way into his cheek. Nora and me pulled a claw out of it, just about here.” His finger dabbed at the gash. “We put some of the vet’s medicine on it and Grandma said to do it once more before I go to bed.”

  Christie sat down beside her son and rubbed her hand into the heavy fur. The deep rumble this time was definitely purring. “Why do you suppose he gets into so many fights?”

  “Well, maybe because it makes him feel good. Or maybe because, well, maybe sometimes he gets mad at something that somebody else does to him.” Mickey propped his head on his hands. His eyes were so round and clearly blue that Christie wanted to reach out, hold him, protect him. But she closed off one part of herself and listened to her son. His smooth forehead was touched with a childish frown. “Like, sometimes I get mad at something someone does to me.”

  Mickey twisted his body, rolled into a cross-legged sitting position beside his mother. His hand thumped the cat.

  “Did you get mad at somebody recently?”

  The small hand moved rapidly, ruffling the fur. “Well, yeah.”

  “Did you have a fight with somebody recently? Like today?”

  The small face looked up; there was color rising along his cheeks. “Hey, Mom, how did you know that?”

  “Because I am a Master-Mind-Detective who knows all things, right?” She pushed his hair from his forehead. “Well, suppose you tell me all about it anyway.”

  The words came in a torrent of indignant phrases and accusations. The small body reenacted a scene of childish combat. Mickey had been betrayed by a best friend. Something about his turn on the sled. A push. Angry words. A tussle in rain-wet snow.

  “And then, I took a handful of wet slush and shoved it right down Timmy’s neck.”

  Christie thought that under the circumstances it was a reasonable action. The boys were evenly matched, pound for pound. For a moment, she had forgotten who Timmy Taylor was.

  “Well, what did Timmy do then?”

  Mickey’s sigh was deep and perplexed. “Well, he didn’t do anything. He said something.” He sank to his knees beside Christie. “Something like ... about he wasn’t going to ‘respond to my hostilities.’ He always says something like that when he’s losing a fight. Mom, what does that mean, anyway?”

  Timmy Taylor was the second of three sons of two practicing psychologists and he had picked up their jargon, at times applying it properly.

  Christie regarded the earnest face and gave her full attention to her son. “Well, Mickey, what do you think it meant?”

  “I think it meant that Timmy didn’t want to fight anymore.”

  She smiled and nodded. “That’s what I think, too.” Christie moved suddenly, a quick, darting grab that caught Mickey off balance. She nearly pinned his shoulders flat, but he rolled suddenly and she let herself go limp and the small, strong hands pushed against her.

  “I give up. I yield to your hostilities.”

 
; Mickey rolled on his back, flung a hand over his head and gave a loud, happy yell. When he heard the phone ring, he grimaced at his mother. “Oh-oh. That’s probably Timmy’s mother calling about ... you know. The fight and hostilities and all.”

  Christie moved toward the phone, her back to Mickey; she made a face to equal her son’s expression. This was not the night she particularly cared to hear an earnest, gratuitous, friendly but professional evaluation of her son’s emotional life. She interrupted the third ring, determined to cut short Violet Taylor’s soft, breathy onslaught.

  “Detective Opara?”

  She couldn’t immediately place the voice: it was female, brisk, and businesslike.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Mother Superior Catherine Therese. This is the first chance I’ve had to return your call. How can I help you?”

  She had completely forgotten the call to the Mother Superior. She already had the information. But she couldn’t tell the woman that. Christie sat on the arm of a chair and slowly let her body slide into the seat. She held the phone on her lap and closed her eyes. The weariness, which had been held back by tension, seemed to flood her. She went through the formalities somewhat listlessly.

  “Well, Reverend Mother, in checking on Elena Vargas, I learned that Elena had a baby.”

  Mickey Opara, relieved that the telephone call did not concern his misdeeds, followed Christie’s signal and went upstairs, where he was supposed to take a bath.

  “I told you that I had a feeling we’d speak again, Detective Opara.”

  Yes. Christie remembered that now. “Yes, and I appreciate your calling me. I wanted to know whatever you could tell me about the child.”

  The silence lasted a few seconds and then she was told, “Detective Opara, you must surely realize that there is little I can tell you about Elena’s child. These matters are kept confidential. This is essential, for all concerned.”